Apparently the Canes GM has come out and said they will be taking a forward this year. Dont have a link but it is being talked about in the prospect forum.

Yup.

Quote:

The team has no intention of trading up at the draft. After the top defenseman who will probably go at number one, they have the top five offensive players in the draft rated very closely and will be happy with whomever is available to them. "Number five could end up as being as good or better than number two".

Do fans in Sweden just not like Calgary for some reason? Every Swedish poster on this board I've talked to has said they'd hate to see Lindholm go to the Flames.

To answer your question, I think most Swedish NHL fans view the Flames as a backward team that's been declining for a long time, which I suppose is hard to argue at this point. I've never talked to another Swedish Flames fan either. Most Swedish fans flock to either the classic teams like the Rangers(Lundqvist) and the Leafs(Sundin) or other teams that have had popular Swedish players like Detroit, Vancouver or Colorado(Forsberg). There's also the time zone thing, consider that Flames home games normally start at 4 AM for us. If you follow an eastern team you can at least stay up to watch games in the weekends. There's not much reason for any Swedes to get interested in or care about the Flames so most I think that are interested in the NHL in general just join in the consensus amongst many fan bases the past years that the Flames are a laughing stock or just a boring team.

In summary it's probably just the common notion that the Flames suck and Swedish hockey fans want to see Swedish NHL players do well on cool teams.

Putting that aside, for me personally, I just think Monahan is more the type of player we need. I'm a Flames fan and it doesn't really concern me if the player we draft happens to be Swedish or not. I also won't much care about Lindholm one way or the other unless he does get drafted by us.

I actually haven't seen this either, but I could see it happening, because what I have noticed is that most Swedish NHL fans hold the opinion that we are a poorly managed team, overpay players and give out NMC's like candy bars, and should have rebuilt a long time ago. Of course, they're hardly alone in thinking that.

I actually haven't seen this either, but I could see it happening, because what I have noticed is that most Swedish NHL fans hold the opinion that we are a poorly managed team, overpay players and give out NMC's like candy bars, and should have rebuilt a long time ago. Of course, they're hardly alone in thinking that.

They're right.

I will argue though NMCs are given to players so they take a discount (ie Glencross) and that in terms of free agents, it's impossible not to overpay (Hudler and Wideman arguably played up to their contracts).

We've traded Iginla and Bouwmeester, Kippers retiring. Whether our GM wants to say it or not this team is rebuilding.

Lindholm could mark the beginning of that. At least on our team he'd be our clear cut number 1 C as opposed to playing behind the Staals

I understand that during the draft it should always be BPA, but I would prefer defenseman with our late first rounders because they take longer to develop. This is what has always bothered me about the oilers rebuild, sure they got some pretty deece top 6 players, but that defense, ick. If they didnt get Schultz this year ouch.

I understand that during the draft it should always be BPA, but I would prefer defenseman with our late first rounders because they take longer to develop. This is what has always bothered me about the oilers rebuild, sure they got some pretty deece top 6 players, but that defense, ick. If they didnt get Schultz this year ouch.

I agree but they also have no one on the back end except for Shultz and maybe smid. We have Gio and Brodie, one could argue Wideman. We also have depth with Butler and Cundari

I love Gio & Brodie but their 3/4 defenseman, Wideman as well, Flames need Top 2 defensmen (We traded our #2 to St Louis). As for Breen/Butler/Cundari those are at best 5/6/7 defensman. As for our D prospects, I see maybe Kulak/Wotherspoon as top four (Seiloff and Culkin look like 5/6's to me). Of course this is just my opinion lol.